Breathe
by Rhea-samma
Summary: Originally Cancer Sticks. Latest Chapter: Sometimes, Watari has too much time on his hands.
1. Terazuma

I literally just wrote this. Sorry if the narration is.. awkward but I like it. I didn't want to do first person or third person and I _LOATHE _second person for the most part. I think I did okay. Leave a review :D Originally titled "Cancer Sticks"

The inspiration bug hit me XDD

**Terazuma**

Pay for the cigarettes, leave 'Kaba's money on the counter and go. Leave the gas station and its disgusting, overpowering smells. Pull out a soft paper cylinder and light it up. (Ignore the little girl who just came up to say 'Smoking is bad for you' before her mother shoos her inside.)

Fumble with a match, because that's all that's on hand, and then slowly inhale the noxious fumes.

Breathe in. Exhale out.

Marvel at the power of Shinigami lungs, healing themselves of damage that should have caused cancer years ago. Ignore Tatsumi-san's dissaproving scowl at having them in the office. Replace the spent butt with a new cigarette, repeat. Slowly suck the smoke in, drink the calming, soothing niccotine.

Let the sickly sweet smell of the drug sooth the monster within, the Beast that Should Not Be. Feel him simmer, go away, go away.

Simmer, heal, sleep, kill, regenerate, sleep, lull...smoke.

Revel in the feel of burning lungs, continue to be amazed as they heal right back up. Wonder how much abuse an immortal body can take. Consider using dumbass Watari or dumberass Tsuzuki to test that thought.

Empty the ashtray and pull out a third cigarette. A habit that was never broken. Death itself could not cease the need.

Grit the end between animalistic fangs, glare at paperwork. Hope it combusts.

Nothing..

Growl. Fill out gods-be-damned forms. Wait for partner.

Wait.

Get a fourth stick.

Wait.

Fight the Beast.

Ask partner where she was, try to avoid thinking about the answer. (Damn Tsuzuki..)

Don't meet her eyes as she sees the cigs are still there.. still there. She has never approved.

("Hajime when are you going to quit?"

"When I'm darn good and ready to!" Which is never)

Ignore that sad little sigh. Ignore it.. ignore it...

...douse out unfinished cancer stick. Aplogize.

"...I'm sorry." Ignore the creature that says to attack her.

"I'm sure you'll do better tomorrow." A lie. The same one she said yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. And the day before that too.

...Break down an hour later and whip out the box.

Smoke.

_Breathe..._

-FIN-


	2. Tatsumi

So, I'm making this a multiparter now. And I've changed the title. 

It was a toss up between "Smoke" or "Breathe" but I think I made the right choice..

---

**Tatsumi**

I hate that smell. The smell of memories.

Watari once said that, or perhaps thrice said, that smells are hotlinks to memories. They're powerful triggers that are lodged deep within the psyche. Then he started rambling on about bloodhounds and dogs, and what it must be like to have their sesnses and I lost interest as the neuroscience started to go over my head.

Nevertheless, it is true.

And that's why Terazuma is not allowed to smoke in or near my office.

Honestly, it's such an atrocious habit anyways. So disgusting and unhygenic--and that smell.

I hate it.

I hate it with a passion.

Not that I've ever told anyone. (Though it wouldn't surprise me if they knew.)

I'd take in another deep breath if it didn't require filling my nose with that sickly-sweet, noxious smell.

It takes me back to darker days.

Days working the field, wondering why mortals would chose to kill themselves that much faster.

Days of splitting knuckles against another human's flesh, bring burned by a hot, round stub.

Evenings filled with meaningless sex, wondering why I couldn't bring myself to like the woman I'd chosen to bed that night.

And then perhaps the days and mornings and nights most hated of all.

Waking up at five AM, only to find a still smouldering cigarette in an ashtray and still no sign of the man called 'father.'

Coming home at six to find the same sight, to be reminded that the man was still there; it was just that he couldn't stand to look at his only son.

A different smell assaults the senses, one linked to the present.

"Stop brooding, it's not good for you." A different kind of smoke, delightfully chemical and base. It's more... 'honest.'

"Watari-san. Shouldn't you be working at the moment?" A quixotic smile,

"Aren't you ever going to call me 'Watari'?" Another wave of that dizzying, _Eau de Sciencé _and I consider it.

"You didn't answer my question." The ever-smiling lips twist to form a different one, one of resigned defeat.

"Yes, I am in fact slacking off right now, in order to check up on you. You know me too well." A statement that is... dangerously capable of being reciproacated. I don't know if I like that thought.

"Well as you can see, I am fine now. Please return to your appointed workstation." A wink and a cheery wave and he is gone,

"Sure thing boss-man!"

A deep, oddly relieved breath and I realize what he's just done.

He's taken away the lingering smells with him.

The air is clean again.

...I suppose I should thank him.

I'll find a way.


	3. Watari

Watari's turn this time. If you're squeamish, you might want to look away.

**Watari**

The Shinigami Watari Yutaka is a creature of sensation. And when he's bored he likes to test the limits of his (immortal) body. Usually the experiments aren't too morbid. Usually.

Today's is an age old favorite.

Holding his breath.

The experiment starts as it ends--with meditation.

He sits on the floor of his lab, sitting in a half-lotus, and he slowly lets himself relax.

One by one, like a cascade, his drop fall away, slowly at first--reluctant to leave, but soon they fall away faster and faster.

Soon he is left with an empty, empty mind.

For a few moments, he takes in a few breaths, air currents brushing against his nostrils keenly. Then, he takes a large breath (and he's always wondered why this reflex never goes away) and clamps his lips shut, covering his nose with his hand.

Within seconds the toxic CO2 has created unbearable pressure and he lets it slowly release, without taking in a new breath.

His lungs are warm with a fuzzy sort of.. emptiness. He can feel his heart rate increasing--blood racing in a sort of mechanized panic.

He has to clamp another hand over the one already in place as instinct clamors to override the experiment already in progress.

It's so very, very hard not to take another breath, but he simply presses his lips tighter together, creating a white, firm line beneath his palms.

Watari releases more of the gathering carbon dioxide, but it's harder, there's less pressure behind it, and each emission sends a slight thrill of nausea through him.

His lungs start to tingle, prickling softly.

Instint is clamoring for him to drop his hands and let his fingers go, take in a breath, take in a breath!

In his mind he laughs at that baser instinct, taunts it mercilessly.

Perhaps that attitude is what killed him the first time.

He no longer sees what is before him. As his lungs ache and cry out for more oxygen, he rocks back and forth to distract himself from the need to use his airways.

Just a little longer...

His head is swimming, and the pressure in his face and ears is very uncomfortable.

Warmth, his body is warm, carbon dioxide is marvelous like that for generating heat. It's dizzying.

His eyes roll up, twitching as if in a seizure, and now he's fighting for consciousness--again reflexively. They do it again, and his lungs are needling, needlings, needling with tiny pinpricks of pain all over.

Hot, hot, he's feverish and drifting away, and his entire respiratory system is simply burning with need.

Watari has to fight the urge against a dizzying laugh, because that would upset the entire experiment.

He's swaying, but it's not intentional, he can feel blackness gathering around the edges of his perception, feeling dulling away, becoming sluggish like his thoughts.

His mind grows darker and less sharp in its need for that life-giving element.

The warmth goes away suddenly and Watari knows his time is up, and he slumps over as unconsciousness takes him on black wings.

When he comes to minutes later, his eyes are brimming with tears, leftover from the battle to drive back biology.

He sucks in air greedily, reveling in that razor-like sensation, the experience of breathing feeling like something entirely new once again. That euphoric sense of 'I am alive.'

Morbid? A touch. Irresponsible? Perhaps. Invigorating? Very.

However it is something more than that, it is an experiment of insurance, assurance. And also something that trancends to whatever sense of spirituality that he, as a scientist, feels he can have.

It is, in the end, something he cannot really (and does not care to) explain.

He just hopes that no one else finds out.

As he took up the half lotus position again, he was unaware of the watchful eyes on him from beyond the lab, looking through the door at him, totally deviod of emotion.


End file.
